Tags

Inclusion of less privileged communities as sanitation beneficiaries in the demand-responsive approach

Sri Lanka is one of the countries in the South Asia Region with higher sanitation coverage. Out of 20.7 million people in the country, 17.6 mln people are currently enjoying safe sanitation. Although it had been the practice to provide direct subsidies for those without toilets a few decades ago, Sri Lanka Authorities are now approaching the beneficiary communities with a demand driven concept. This approach has been successfully tested in many water supply and sanitation projects implemented for rural and poor during the recent past in the country. Although it was expected that the project beneficiaries of those projects would contribute at least 20% of the project cost, it was found that many community contributions were generally exceeding this minimum target and has reached even 30% in certain project components. In contrast, it was noted that a few willing families were sometimes excluded or dropped from the beneficiary lists during the process. Some marginalized groups did not join the project due to social reasons, whereas the other groups found that they could not contribute the minimum 20% project contribution. Hence, it was a challenge to the Project Implementers to get these willing communities also included as sanitation beneficiaries in order to produce a sanitary safe environment for the whole village after the project completion. The paper discuses the strategies adopted to address this issue during the implementation of the Third Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project funded by ADB 3rd Project which concluded successfully with remarkable results a few years back. [authors abstract]

Title

Inclusion of less privileged communities as sanitation beneficiaries in the demand-responsive approach

Sri Lanka is one of the countries in the South Asia Region with higher sanitation coverage. Out of 20.7 million people in the country, 17.6 mln people are currently enjoying safe sanitation. Although it had been the practice to provide direct subsidies for those without toilets a few decades ago, Sri Lanka Authorities are now approaching the beneficiary communities with a demand driven concept. This approach has been successfully tested in many water supply and sanitation projects implemented for rural and poor during the recent past in the country. Although it was expected that the project beneficiaries of those projects would contribute at least 20% of the project cost, it was found that many community contributions were generally exceeding this minimum target and has reached even 30% in certain project components. In contrast, it was noted that a few willing families were sometimes excluded or dropped from the beneficiary lists during the process. Some marginalized groups did not join the project due to social reasons, whereas the other groups found that they could not contribute the minimum 20% project contribution. Hence, it was a challenge to the Project Implementers to get these willing communities also included as sanitation beneficiaries in order to produce a sanitary safe environment for the whole village after the project completion. The paper discuses the strategies adopted to address this issue during the implementation of the Third Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project funded by ADB 3rd Project which concluded successfully with remarkable results a few years back. [authors abstract]